Riley Bradshaw always feels a little different on rivalry weeks like this one. Regardless of how many minutes he plays, the Corvallis native still takes great pride in representing the Treasure State when his Montana Grizzlies play the Montana State Bobcats.
Bradshaw has played sparingly and for short spurts during his junior season after a solid sophomore campaign. The 6-foot-2 guard showed flashes down the stretch of his second season in Missoula but the emergence of UM freshman guard Michael Oguine has cut his minutes in head coach Travis DeCuire’s rotation.
[restrict paid=”true”]On Saturday, MSU comes to Dahlberg Arena. Bradshaw’s parents, Dave and Eileen and his older brother, Shea, sure to be in attendance along with thousands of others who share Bradshaw’s Montana roots.
“I definitely feel different this week,” Bradshaw said. “I know a ton of people from Montana State. They will still talk some trash to me, especially in Bozeman. It’s still the best rivalry there is and something I’ve been a part of my whole life, grew up watching. It’s still cool to be a part of it.”
Bradshaw is one of seven Montana natives on the Grizzlies’ roster. Junior Aaron Misipeka-Ward (Florence), junior Zachary Camel (Polson), redshirt freshman Bryden Boehning (Glendive) and Gavin DeJong (Manhattan) hail from small towns while freshmen Jared Samuelson and Trevor Spoja are each Billing West alums.
Montana State’s roster features two in-state products: senior forward Danny Robison (Billings West) and freshman walk-on Cooper Olson.
“We are kind of representatives for Montana,” Bradshaw said. “I think it’s sometimes overlooked but you look at last year’s class, you have Tres Tinkle (Missoula) and Kendal Manuel (Billings) going to Oregon State, Jared Samuelson playing for us, Trevor (Spoja) for us. It’s not a dying breed yet but there are definitely a ton of guys playing NAIA in Montana who are good players who might not of gotten a shot or got their names out there like that.
“It’s cool to be from here and represent the state.”
Saturday’s matchup features a Montana team chasing a second straight Big Sky Conference regular-season title in DeCuire’s second campaign against an upstart Bobcat team that has won three straight.
The last time MSU beat the Grizzlies — a streak that is at 11 UM wins and counting — Bradshaw was a 17-year-old prep junior averaging 25 points per game playing for his father and the Corvallis Blue Devils. He put himself on the regional scoring map with a 41-point outburst against Stevensville. By the time he was a senior, Bradshaw was averaging 24.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, receiving Mountain West, Big Sky and WAC interest in the process. ESPN.com ranked him as the No. 50 point guard in the nation. Stew Morrill, the head coach at Montana from 1986 until 1991 and the head coach at Utah State from 1998 until 2015, took notice.
Bradshaw signed with the Aggies but lasted just one semester in Logan. He transferred back to Missoula to play for Wayne Tinkle and played seven minutes a game as a redshirt freshman.
Last season, Bradshaw was one of the first Grizzlies off the bench. He averaged 4.8 points and 4.7 rebounds in 15.4 minutes per game. Bradshaw converted 3-of-4 shots and scored seven points in 17 minutes in Montana’s 63-48 win over MSU in Missoula. In UM’s 70-54 win in Bozeman later last season, Bradshaw dished out three assists and grabbed four rebounds in 21 minutes.
In the Big Sky Tournament, Bradshaw played nearly 24 minutes a game as the host Griz surged into the championship game. Bradshaw hit two 3-pointers and scored a career-high 10 points in UM’s 61-59 win over Northern Arizona in the semifinals.
This season, because of the emergence of Oguine as a freshman phenom and point guard Walter Wright as a front-runner for Big Sky Newcomer of the Year, Bradshaw’s minutes have all but disappeared. He started UM’s first two games but is playing just 7.1 minutes per game, including just 3.7 minutes in conference play. He has not played in three (Northern Arizona, Eastern Washington, Sacramento State) of Montana’s 12 league games and has played 33 minutes total against the rest of the Big Sky. He scored six points in 10 minutes of UM’s 86-53 win over Southern Utah last weekend. He has one other Big Sky bucket this winter.
“I’m just trying to stay ready and do anything I can to help us out right now,” Bradshaw said. “I go into every practice trying to get ready to play 40 minutes or no minutes. It’s whatever I can do to try to play my role and be a spark off that bench.
“At times, it’s hard. But you have to stay focused and stay ready. You could play a lot of minutes one night, and not any the next but you always have to be ready and if not, move on and be ready for the next game.
“I’m still very confident in myself and I trust Coach.”
While Oguine continues one of the best seasons in program history and Montana chases its 10th Big Sky banner, Bradshaw continues to wait his turn. This season, he has struggled shooting the ball when given the chance; he is 7-of-25 from the floor, including 4-of-15 from beyond the arc. Yet his disposition remains the same.
“Roles are day to day,” DeCuire said. “The unfortunate thing for Riley is the rise of Michael Oguine. Mike has become a pretty dominant factor for us. He’s our best defensive player. We needed his defense to be a team that competes. Walter Wright is really the only guy who can play the point for us so he’s playing a lot of minutes.
“Riley has ended up being the odd man out. But he’s handled that very well. He’s a very positive young man. He’s definitely been a contributor to our success because he practices so hard. And he’s ready for any opportunity he gets. If we throw him out there, he is going to be ready to play.”
Oguine, a 6-foot-2 freshman from Southern California, burst onto the scene right away, scoring 17 points in UM’s season-opening 74-72 upset of Boise State. Since the debut, Oguine has emerged as a capable scorer (11.3 points per game in conference play) and one of the best perimeter defenders in the league.
“It’s been cool and he has surprised everybody, even us players,” Bradshaw said. “We knew he could be good, we knew what he could do but for him to be as good as he has been so early, it’s been pretty special.”
Montana’s roster features more Treasure State natives than in recent years. All but Bradshaw and DeJong are walk-ons. DeCuire said he sees the value in Montana players, especially during rivalry weeks, but added that he will not sacrifice success for roster demographics. He is thankful for how well Bradshaw has accepted his role.
“At the end of the day, it’s a basketball game and we are playing who happens to be our rival but we are also competing for a championship so we are going to put the guys on the floor who are going to get us where we need to be,” DeCuire said. “One of the things this program has done since I’ve gotten here is we pay close attention to individual goals in the off-season and when our first practice started, we all took individual goals and achievements and threw them out the window.
“So what we are right now as a team is a team with very good chemistry that is going to go out and do whatever it takes to win. We have a commitment to each other to be successful. That’s on the floor or off the floor, communicating with each other during timeouts or cheering for each other from the sidelines. Riley has been as valuable as anyone in our program in buying into that.”
[/restrict]Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
